Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller

by B. Michaels

  Wahhabism was a strain of puritanical Islam birthed in Saudi Arabia. The Salafi movement was often used synonymously with Wahhabism, but Salafists felt being called, “Wahhabi,” was derogatory. Irrespective of the terms, the broad idea was the same. Both ideologies were a fundamentalist form of Islam that called for a strict, literal interpretation of the Koran.

  While the US wanted a new Syrian government, they did not want the Syrian government to fall into the hands of the Caliphate or other Islamic extremists. Also, it was nearly impossible, as evidenced by the beheading of Charlie Shields, to determine who was a moderate and who was an extremist. Weapons meant for the moderates often ended up in the hands of the Caliphate.

  There were numerous peace talks over the last five years to discuss Syria. No-fly zones were implemented. Ceasefires would be announced and then broken. Territory would be lost, retaken, and lost again. It was a stalemate.

  It would remain a stalemate until new, more inclusive governments were installed in Syria and Iraq—governments that protected Sunni and Shia alike. The only other alternative was to divide Syria and Iraq into pieces, administered by the various factions. Or, start a major ground war in the region.

  So the President punted for four years.

  Aside from the stepped up bombing of Iraq, movement of special operations units from Syria to Iraq, and the establishment of some hard-to-police safe zones; the most meaningful action the President took was giving General Shields his fifth star. POTUS bestowed this honor when he approved Shields for DIRNSA.

  This hugely symbolic act was meant to signify that the nation was on war-footing. The symbolism was not matched with concrete actions. This was a very different war than WWII or Korea. This was an asymmetric intelligence war. The bad guys didn’t wear uniforms.

  However, there was an election in four months. Punting was now hurting the President. POTUS’ opponent was lambasting the Administration’s Caliphate strategy as weak and ineffective. He continually reminded the American public of POTUS’ campaign promises. The most damaging issue for POTUS was the 2019 rebuke of the US by Iraq. Iraq’s replacement of US forces with Russians and Iranians embarrassed America.

  His challenger said there had been no retribution for the humiliating deaths of the SEALs. He argued that the Caliphate was strengthening, not getting weaker. Also, Caliphate sympathizers continued to plan and carry out an increasing number of attacks in Europe and the US.

  Additionally, while General Shields had received tremendous accolades over the last three years for minimizing terror attacks and keeping the NSA out of the news; the DCIA had become a lightning rod. There was a significant public outcry regarding collateral damage from drone strikes.

  The Caliphate ingeniously posted pictures of civilian carnage from remotely controlled attacks. Whistleblowers were also lambasting the drone program, claiming that '''''''''' ''''''''''' were not sufficient evidence for state execution. The IC referred to the lethal drone strikes as, ‘targeted killing.’ They testified that collateral damage from targeted killing was the lowest in the history of warfare. Luckily for POTUS, terrorism wasn’t the only issue of the 2020 election. In particular, voters were happy with Goodson’s handling of the economy.

  POTUS told the teleconference, “While I see the risks of going into Dabiq with a strike team to get Omar, I’m leaning towards Walt’s option. Bernie, you of all people should support this decision. You’ve been on my ass for four years to step-up attacks on the Caliphate.”

  The President detailed how the US would achieve a significant victory against the Caliphate. He was also sure that Omar would talk. The US would get needed intelligence from the house, especially since Omar was the financial brain for the Caliphate.

  POTUS noted that firing a Hellfire missile into a neighborhood would probably kill some innocent civilians. Most likely, they wouldn’t be sure that Omar was dead. Finally, if something happened to the team, there was sufficient deniability.

  The DCIA’s strike team consisted of mercenaries—hired contractors with signed NDAs. They were all heavily decorated, ex-members of the US special operations community. They were paid to look like Kurdish fighters. All of their families had also signed NDAs.

  General Shields’ blood was near the boiling point. He thought, How wantonly does the DCIA and POTUS risk American lives? Where are the DCIAs that broke the back of the Russians with HUMINT? And the President chooses to look tough now, just in time for the debates?

  General Shields made one final attempt to dissuade POTUS from the nighttime raid. “Mr. President, what if this is a trap? No one from the Caliphate has ever used A-Mail. Omar has dozens of ''''''''' '''''''''''''. We haven’t associated this SIM card with him in over 10 months?”

  It was no use. POTUS had selected his option.

  “Bernie, if Omar steps foot out of that house before the strike, we’ll take him out with a Hellfire—irrespective of the consequences. We’ve got eyes on. Otherwise, there’s too much upside for this mission. God forbid, if our team suffers losses, our stance will be that these were Kurdish fighters with American air support. We’ll only need to say that if the story gets out. There’s no CNN in Dabiq.”

  *

  The raid was to commence at 7:00 p.m. EDT—2:00 a.m. Dabiq time. After the General’s conversation with POTUS, the Marauder did chronicle video of a woman exiting the house and later returning. The women looked like Nafisa, although facial recognition was inconclusive.

  General Shields and his senior leadership gathered in the NSA Director’s Conference Room, near the General’s office suite, in Ops 2B. It’s gargantuan, circular conference table looked like Stanley Kubrick forwarded it from the set of his movie, Dr. Strangelove. Top leaders present included; Deputy DIRNSA, Director-SIGINT Directorate, and Director-NSOC.

  Oversized, flat-screen monitors surrounded the room. The real-time Marauder feed directly faced the General. The drone was switching between its night-vision and thermal cameras. The Marauder was flying in a surveillance pattern over Omar’s Dabiq house.

  The General thought the situation was surreal.

  A pilot, working for the CIA on an Air Force base 20 minutes from the Las Vegas strip, was using a joystick to remotely fly the Marauder. The joystick sent flight control information for the plane from Nevada, over a fiber optic line buried underneath the Atlantic Ocean to Ramstein Air Force base. Ramstein was located in Germany.

  From Ramstein, the control information was radioed into space. Finally, a satellite relayed the data to the circling Marauder. Without the fiber optic cable, there would be too much delay to fly the drone adequately.

  Soon the Marauder picked up the Black Hawk helicopter flown by two US Army pilots. The Black Hawk contained the 12 CIA contractors in Kurdish separatist garb. This was war in the twenty-first century.

  Distributed. Deniable. Secret. Undeclared.

  The Black Hawk appeared on the flat-screen monitor from the left. It slowed and hovered near Omar’s house. Soldiers emerged from both sides of the helicopter. They began to fast rope to the ground.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Two rocket-propelled grenades struck the Black Hawk. It was an ambush. The Black Hawk began to swivel and dip. The pilots lost control. The rotors cut into the ground and snapped, as the helicopter rolled and flipped numerous times before it came to a mangled rest.

  Heavily armed Caliphate forces exited the residences near Omar’s house, to the north and south. They rushed toward the Black Hawk wreckage.

  When it was over, two Army pilots and eight of the contractors were dead. The Caliphate apprehended four contractors. General Shields was beside himself with rage. He drowned his fury with a bottle of scotch.

  *

  The next day, the Caliphate paraded the four mercenaries before TV cameras and posted videos to A-Tube. A White House spokesman claimed that, while the pilots were American, t
he captured and killed soldiers were Kurdish rebels.

  A few days later, the Caliphate exposed the lie when it posted a video that graphically illustrated the match between the soldier’s fingerprints, and prints they accessed from the OPM database hack. At some point in their careers, to obtain a clearance, the ex-US Special Operations warriors had trusted their government with extremely private information—including their fingerprints. Now those fingerprints betrayed them.

  The Caliphate proved to the world that the soldiers were Americans. It was a debacle for President Goodman. The press referred to the ensuing scandal as ‘Dabiq-gate.’ Every night, a new beheading video was posted to the web.

  With each execution, General Shields and Lisa were forced to relive Charlie’s death.

  Unbeknownst to the world, Omar was never in the targeted house. The Caliphate filled the home with human slaves and placed the SIM card in the dwelling. They found a Yazidi slave girl of the same height and build of Nafisa, and made her wear a wig. The email was a trap to either lure the Americans into an ambush or a drone strike. In the event of a US drone strike, the Caliphate would rush to film the attack. Then they’d post videos of the dead women and children as collateral damage carnage.

  Chapter 16 – Swarmbot Demo 1

  7:05 a.m. (EDT), Wednesday, September 30, 2020 – Columbia, MD

  Suite 201, Gamification Systems’ Offices, Defense Innovations Accelerator

  Becca culled the emails in her inbox. Today was Gamification’s Demo Day for General Shields. Unlike all the other monthly demos, Becca was not invited. Just yesterday, Samantha told Becca she was ‘not needed’ for the demo. Ali would attend instead. Becca was incredibly upset. How could Samantha not trust me? The thought echoed through the canyons of her mind.

  Over the last two months, two good things happened. First, her relationship with Josh was advancing. Becca was at the point where she thought she might be in love. She admired Josh’s passion, can-do optimism, and vision for possibilities. She could overlook his obsession with AI, as long as she was a part of the obsession.

  At least for now, Josh did that. They were like hikers on an adventure. His dimples and rower’s back didn’t hurt either. She continued to work with him closely, integrating CyberAI’s AI Kernel with G-Bridge. He could be romantic, at least when he put his mind to it. Maybe he could develop an AI-romantic app to help him?

  Secondly, Gecko Insurance executed a paid pilot agreement. Samantha named Becca as Gecko’s principal contact. Becca’s job was to ensure the engagement proceeded successfully. This was the first sale for Gamification Systems. It was a big moment for everyone at the company.

  But beyond Josh and the Gecko pilot, the pressure and professional disappointment of the last few months weighed heavily on Becca. Like the drip-drip-drip of a faucet, Becca felt that Samantha was slowly cutting her out of the loop.

  She couldn’t understand why.

  Samantha told Becca to quit being paranoid. There was no effort to firewall her from projects. The CEO only wanted Becca focused on making sure the pilot with Gecko Insurance was successful, and led to the purchase of an enterprise license.

  “You’re working on the most important project for the whole company. You’re essential to Gamification Systems,” Samantha told her.

  Becca wasn’t buying it.

  The VP of Sales, Lou Skaist, arrived for an early web presentation and greeted Becca. “Aren’t you going to Demo Day this morning?”

  Becca looked at Lou. Big tears welled up in her eyes. “No,” she replied, trying to hide her face. She ran to the bathroom. On her way to the ladies room, through the tears, Becca saw Saul Abrams and a number of young servicemen. They represented all branches of the military; Air Force, Army, Marines, and Navy. Saul led the servicemen into the second-floor SCIF.

  This had become so familiar over the last two months. She had no idea what Ali, Saul, or Samantha were doing. She felt like a second-class citizen. She couldn’t fathom the reason for the slights. How could Samantha not trust me?

  Granted, Gamification was funded by the NSA. Becca expected some skullduggery and compartmentalization. But she held a TS/SCI clearance, just like Ali and Saul. After gathering herself, Becca lumbered back into Gamification. She walked into Ali’s office, the site of so many laughs in the past. Becca wasn’t sure what she was looking for. She just hoped to make sense of the situation.

  She spied numerous technical manuals from Swarmbot, semi-hidden under file folders. They were scattered all over Ali’s desk.

  *

  Samantha, Ali, and the Swarmbot team congregated outside the sixth-floor SCIF. The Swarmbot executives wore elaborate backpacks. They were constructed from a material Samantha had never encountered. The packs were ready for rugged hiking. General Shields and Lin Liu joined the SWARM team.

  “Good morning,” said the General brusquely.

  Samantha felt the pressure of the last six weeks. Since the Dabiq fiasco, General Shields was mercilessly focused and humorless. He was furious with POTUS and the CIA. More than ever, Samantha felt that the General’s sole purpose in life was to annihilate the Caliphate.

  For her part, despite her continued efforts, she failed to talk Shields into allowing Becca to work on either FOGGY or SWARM. She knew Becca was upset. Samantha was disappointed. She never expected an investor to be able to dictate personnel decisions. Sleeping with him only complicated matters. It was no longer an escape. It was a prison. She felt caged and manipulated.

  After everyone removed and stowed their cell phones, General Shields moved to unlock the SCIF door. Ken Sazuki of Swarmbot said, “General, you know we have the Swarmbots and tablets in the in the backpack, right?”

  The General replied curtly, “Yes, of course. That’s why we’re here. Bring them in.”

  Once inside the SCIF, Shields moved past the conference room. He stopped at the north door. The General extended his palm on the scanner. An interactive voice response unit asked him his name. Then, he entered a code on the keypad. The north door opened.

  Everyone walked into a voluminous, half-moon shaped room. It reminded Samantha of an amphitheater. They followed Shields down the steps, passing rows and rows of analyst workstations, housed on semi-circular desks.

  This was a high-tech war room. None of the equipment was powered. All eyes were drawn to the curved, 50-foot-high video wall. The situation room also contained numerous flat-screen monitors and television sets. Digital clocks flashed the time in Berlin, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Tehran, and Kabul. Like the NSOC, a blue hue tinted the room.

  “With a great deal of pride, I’m pleased to present to you…the SWARM Operations Center,” said the General, theatrically. “The SWARM Op Center will be command central for Project SWARM, once we get started.”

  After allowing everyone an opportunity to absorb the moment, the General continued to walk the perimeter of the op center, at the bottom of the video wall. He opened a door to lead everyone into another room.

  “And this is the Maze,” said Lin, in a spirit of triumph.

  The room was one-third the size of a football field. General Shields led the SWARM team up a small set of stairs onto a metal viewing platform. The platform overlooked the Maze. It resembled something you’d stand on to watch a middle school football game. Aside from the portion of the room containing the viewing platform, the Swarmbot labyrinth filled the entirety of the room. The plywood walls were only knee-high. Most of the Maze was white, although sections had different landscapes painted on them.

  Samantha could see one area of the Maze that resembled a desert. Another depicted a forest floor. The Maze contained rocks and other barriers, like blocks of wood and half-sized logs. Two, large lights were attached to the far wall. They directly faced the viewing platform. One was red; the other was green. The red light was illuminated.

  Ken Sazuki, Hideki Sato, and Chris
Fischer removed their backpacks. They walked to various spots in the Maze. The team pulled out translucent orbs. Each orb was the size of a softball. Ken, although socially awkward, was the showman of the group. He lifted a Swarmbot high over his head and said, “Ladies and gentlemen of Defense Innovations Accelerator, I give you the fourth generation Swarmbot.”

  Everyone clapped. Samantha counted 11 of the spheroid robots. Actually, upon closer examination of each orb, two were bigger than the others. The outliers were about the size of a little kid’s soccer ball, the kind that five-year-olds use to fit the kick of their tiny feet.

  Samantha eyed the orb closest to her. Its construction was of a composition that was entirely foreign; it looked like foggy glass or opaque crystal. General Shields asked Samantha if she’d ever seen a Swarmbot.

  “No. Ali has—he went to the Swarmbot lab many times, but I’ve never seen them. They don’t look like much.”

  As Ken, Hideki, and Chris were walking back up the stairs of the reviewing stand; Hideki overheard Samantha. “You know, that’s the problem. We can’t figure out why were not billionaires right now. Swarmbots are a key to the future of warfare. But no one in the DoD will buy them. I’ve had a General tell me, ‘What the hell are those? We don’t need any robot balls—I’ve got all the balls I need.’”

  Knowing she’d struck a nerve, Samantha apologized.

  “Take heart boys,” said the General. “Since I first saw them at the 24th, your Swarmbots have gotten better every year. Generals can be some of the most unimaginative buffoons you’ll ever come across. They get paid to not make mistakes. Taking a chance is akin to career suicide. Then, when they retire, they won’t land as lucrative of a consulting job.

  “The first unarmed drones flew in Viet Nam. The Air Force laughed at them for nearly 40 years. Why would anyone want a pilotless aircraft? Drones could have played an enormous role in the 1991 invasion of Iraq. Surely, if deployed in 1991, the drones would have been quickly armed.